Day and Teutenberg double up in California

The Redlands Stage Race used to be decided by significant time gaps. There were years where minutes were used to separate the riders on the podium, but in 2010, the race produced arguably the narrowest of separations between 1st and 6th in its history: 4 seconds. A colossal sum of 33 riders finished within 60 seconds of the overall win at one of the most hotly contested races of the year.

The final day's Sunset Loop produced the necessary fanfare to accompany an overall so packed with talent, and at the end of the day, it was Fly V's Ben Day, who took his second stage race win in as many as weeks. Jamis Sutter Home's fastman, Alejandro Borrajo took the whittled down bunch sprint over two-time San Francisco GP winner, Charles Dionne.

Bonus seconds were on offer throughout the arduous circuit, but coming into the final laps on the Redlands criterium course the overall win was still very much up for grabs. First though, the GC riders would have to figure out how to disrupt the sprinter party that was about to begin in Downtown Redlands.

UnitedHealthcare's Rory Sutherland hoped to make just that move on a course where he had found victory in the past. Team director, Gord Fraser, bemoaned a final kilometer move, which killed any chances Sutherland might have had: "Karl Menzies took over the front with Rory on his wheel. Things were looking good coming into the final 200 meters, but then Luis Amaran made an aggressive move that put Rory into the curb and almost caused him to crash with 200 meters to go. That pretty much killed his momentum and any chance he had of grabbing the bonus time on the line needed to get the overall win. It was definitely a disappointment."

On the women's side, it was HTC-Columbia's Ina-Yoko Teutenberg who made like Ben Day and took her second stage race victory in as many weeks. The foundations for Teutenberg's overall victory were once again laid in the stage race's criterium. Amazingly enough, Teutenberg managed to gain significant time in both the San Dimas criterium and the Redlands criterium. The Stage 2 crit at Redlands netted her over a minute to the good in the general classification. She started the criterium in 2nd place, 14 seconds down on Amber Neben and finished it in 1st, 32 seconds up on Kat Carroll after Neben missed the crucial break.

The women's overall was anything but decided going into the final stage road race on the famed Sunset Loop course, but, at the end of the day, it was Teutenberg comfortably atop the overall after finishing 2nd behind her teammate, Evelyn Stevens.

Stevens rode powerfully all day in support of Teutenberg. She spent most of the stage chasing the day's break to protect Teutenberg, then chased the final attack in the last big lap, before setting off solo with 5k to go to narrowly take the win in front of the sprint from behind, which was taken by Teutenberg.

Teutenberg admitted that the win was anything but easy: "Amber [Neben] and Mara [Abbott] attacked all day and made the race hard from the beginning to the end. It was painful, but my team was amazing and we were able to keep it together.”

As for Stevens? Teutenberg lauded her teammate's efforts: “She was amazing. She really worked so hard all day and it wasn’t easy. To be able to finish it off like that is something special.

Stevens' win came courtesy of the coaxing of her teammate, Teutenberg: “With about five kilometers to go I heard Ina say “Go” so I thought, why not. I’ve worked so hard up to now why not try to win too. It was a really hard day but it’s so nice when it all works out in the end.”

HTC-Columbia laid waste to the California Swing with two terrific performances at both San Dimas and Redlands. It will be interesting to see how the success transfers to European soil in the coming weeks.